Well if applied to antinatalism..you’ve said it’s not tenable because the majority will simply stampede over it with their preferences and thus can’t be a true ethical theory. But an ethical theory may not matter how much it is followed. When it comes to values, it is not cut and dry. We discussed chimp tendencies and then I disputed how much that is a comparison being that we are preference based.

Well if applied to antinatalism.. — schopenhauer1

...which wasn't the subject under discussion here.

you’ve said it’s not tenable because the majority will simply stampede over it with their preferences and thus can’t be a true ethical theory. — schopenhauer1

I have indeed pointed out the unintended irony that in eliminating those unwilling to breed, that would strengthen the impulse to breed of those remaining by definition. To the extent that wanting kids is a genetically or memetically evolved trait, antinatalism would act like the culling hand of selective breeding, removing an undesirable trait from a population and so increasing the general propensity to have children.

For antinatalism to win the race, it has to be all or nothing. The whole population has to be convinced it should halt. For reproduction to win out, even a little bit of breeding is enough to keep the game going.

So at best, antinatalism is a Pyrrhic gesture, the stance of the dedicated absurdist. The real "ethical" choice is being made at the collective population level. And that may also lead to human extinction anytime soon. Death of the species by perfectly natural causes. :)

So I have some questions about the Pattee paper:

1. What is the main point between the physical laws and control constraints? When do the local constraints get in the ontological ecosystem? He mentions them as if they are already existent along with the physical laws (or at least how I interpreted it). How do the local constraints come into the picture if all were originally physical laws?

2. What is the emergent property of protein (what he calls enzyme) folding? I know he talks about strong and weak bonds, but that didn't seem to answer the question.

3. I guess what is the main point regarding biosemiotics in regards to experience?

I believe this may have something to do with what is being measured and what is doing the measuring, but I am not sure if that's where you are going.

1. What is the main point between the physical laws and control constraints? When do the local constraints get in the ontological ecosystem? He mentions them as if they are already existent along with the physical laws (or at least how I interpreted it). How do the local constraints come into the picture if all were originally physical laws? — schopenhauer1

So some constraints are global. And other constraints can then be local. Where's the problem?

The Cosmos has its universal constraints on action or uncertainty. Physical systems, like stars or rocks or waterfalls, then express more local or particular constraints. And then organisms can even construct their own local and particular constraints via the symbol~matter deal of biosemiosis.

2. What is the emergent property of protein (what he calls enzyme) folding? I know he talks about strong and weak bonds, but that didn't seem to answer the question. — schopenhauer1

Your question doesn't make sense.

3. I guess what is the main point regarding biosemiotics in regards to experience? — schopenhauer1

Experience should be understood as an organismic sign relation.

So some constraints are global. And other constraints can then be local. Where's the problem?

The Cosmos has its universal constraints on action or uncertainty. Physical systems, like stars or rocks or waterfalls, then express more local or particular constraints. And then organisms can even construct their own local and particular constraints via the symbol~matter deal of biosemiosis. — apokrisis

He seems to make a stark dichotomy between "physical laws" and "local constraints". So were local constraints always in the picture in his view or were they created by the physical laws?

Your question doesn't make sense. — apokrisis

I meant to say that proteins seem to be the emergent form that is a "description" of the encoded genetic sequences. Where does the emergent property that was not there previously come into play? Presumably, emergent theories claim that new properties are created from the processes of a lower order and cannot be reduced. I don't really see that problem with proteins per se.

Edit: I guess i should add that the analogy to emergent properties of mental states seems tenuous in just that analogy alone.

He seems to make a stark dichotomy between "physical laws" and "local constraints". So were local constraints always in the picture in his view or were they created by the physical laws? — schopenhauer1

You seem not to understand that laws are simply constraints that are universal - baked into the fabric of the Universe as a result of its history of development.

So all biology is ruled by the laws that express the cosmological imperative to thermalise. They can't break that law and have to live within it. They are .... constrained by it. The constraint is a holonomic one, to use the technical term.

But then - as Pattee says - life and mind arise by being able to construct their own localised non-holonomic constraints. These would be the various barriers, gates and switches that make it possible to regulate material flows of entropy - to put any available entropic gradients to good use and do negentropic work.

So it is all about nested hierarchies of constraints. It begins with the most general. And then localised complexity is free to develop within those global bounds. Life and mind go the step further in being able to construct self-interested structures that do work. And they pay for that by always having to accelerate the local production of entropy. They have to exist by doing the second law's job more efficiently than happened to be the case at some particular spot in the Cosmos.

There is nothing forbidding the acceleration of entropy rates by negentropic structure. And what isn't forbidden by natural law is almost sure to happen. Indeed, it must happen if it is actually possible.

That inevitability is why we tend to call it "a law".

Presumably, emergent theories claim that new properties are created from the processes of a lower order and cannot be reduced. I don't really see that problem with proteins per se. — schopenhauer1

How does a protein function as a biological message? How is that emergent from some "lower order" rather than that being an emergent result of there being a larger interpretive context. And enzyme tells a metabolic reaction to hurry up. A membrane tells a metabolic reactant to wait there.

Barriers, gates and switches are all physical devices. But they have no meaning that emerges from within themselves. Their meaning is emergent due to a holism of the whole system operating to meet a goal.

So Pattee was focused on the classic issue of abiogenesis. How could life get started unless life - in that holistic sense - already existed? What is the point of a protein if its folded structure doesn't already mean something in terms of some functional system?

If the fundamental property of a biological protein is to "act like a switch", that can't in fact be a property until it is useful from a holistic and functional point of view to have a part that behaves just like that.

So your notion of emergence is the wrong one - the bottom-up/supervenience story that bedevils material reductionists. Pattee is talking about a top-down systems causality where the whole shapes the parts it needs due to a functional holism.

It is the constraints-based view of metaphysics. That is the critical intellectual leap you are being asked to make.

So what was the interpretive context the protein was already situated in?

Edit: I guess this article has something to do with it: https://www.quantamagazine.org/lifes-first-molecule-was-protein-not-rna-new-model-suggests-20171102/

So what was the interpretive context the protein was already situated in? — schopenhauer1

It would have to be some dissipative process that the protein could regulate. So for example, a really primal step would be the appearance of protein that could act as a hydrogenase enzyme switch - convert protons into H2 molecules and vice versa.

So the basic reaction - which happens when acid water meets an iron rich substrate - is there already. All you need is iron atoms bound up in the right protein conformation to begin to have a knob that controls the reaction in a meaningful direction. There is a little bit of something - which can be used in directed fashion to harness energy and begin building complex carbohydrate structures - for evolution to get its teeth sunk into.

It is like a switch floating around in an already active soup. A network of these switches can assemble to create a complexly structured flow - with switch building becoming itself an increasingly complex part of the construction process.

So the first steps are not very "informational" perhaps. They are not the leap to completely symbolic semiosis as we see with RNA. But Peircean semiosis itself recognises grades of semiosis - the three steps from iconic to indexical to fully symbolic.

So the earliest biological structure would have been merely a switch pointing a way in indexical fashion. The interpretive context would be of the most minimal possible kind.

But then what else would you expect right at the beginning?

Oh this thread covers so much, but back to your original topic, the problem of where did something come from, and what is nothing? I spent years of my childhood torturing myself trying to make sense of this. The answer, and peace of mind, for me came from thinking about just what "absolutely nothing" is, as that was the only thing that made sense that could be without being caused.

I don't claim this to be valid reasoning. It is just my childhood thoughts. But it makes sense to me to this day so I share it with you.

I thought that absolutely nothing had no mechanisms within it. No time. No space. No laws of physics, for the laws of physics describe describe very precise mathematical terms a set of complex behaviors, which suggested to me that some kind of mechanism was operating that causes those behaviors. No endless sea of quantum flux, or no other mechanisms that would allow a universe to big bang forth.

Then I started to think that existence was a property, and that something must be there to persist the existence of something --or the lack of something. For example, this white and brown coffee cup in front of me exists, and it continues to exist across a span of time... something seems to be persisting that state of existence. Meanwhile, the purple kangaroo in this room does not exist, and continues to not exist, so something must be persisting the lack of existence of the purple kangaroo just as something is persisting the existence of this coffee cup.

From this, I concluded that if there was absolutely nothing, the existence of something in it was undefined. I could not say that this something exists (within this realm), and I also could not say that this something does not exist.

It was easy for me to understand that something exists, such as this cup, or that something does not exist, such as the purple kangaroo. But to understand how something could not be defined to exist or not exist was more challenging. I spent a few days struggling to comprehend what that could mean before I came to a conclusion.

The conclusion that I came to was that existence was relative. If, hypothetically, it were possible to form a description of something of which, within that description, allowed for itself to exist, then, I concluded, that it exists (with respect to itself). Therefore, if, hypothetically, it were possible to describe something that provided for its existence, and provided the mechanisms that allows for the laws of physics, and for the big bang, for our universe to be created, then this universe exists within that realm.

This explanation has and continues to work for me. It provides for an infinite variation of every possible option for the universe to exist, with respect to its realm of existence. Perhaps only an infinitesimally small percentage of those are configured in a way that allows for humans to be in there, pondering things. However, as long as there is a non-zero probability, the one we are in is going to be configured as needed to allow for us to be here.

So the earliest biological structure would have been merely a switch pointing a way in indexical fashion. The interpretive context would be of the most minimal possible kind.

But then what else would you expect right at the beginning? — apokrisis

Okay, so the I'm assuming the mind then is like an analogy with the proteins. I'd like to see where you go with that though without making category errors. In this case, the function of the protein was to create hydrogen for energy (or that's the hypothesis) and so the protein was fully functional and then eventually was coopted into DNA/RNA/amino acid semiosis later. How is this story analogous to the first internal state (i.e mental state)?

How is this story analogous to the first internal state (i.e mental state)? — schopenhauer1

You are presupposing that mental states are a thing. And so you presuppose their dualism to physical states. The whole state-based conception of reality is where you have already gone wrong.

You are trapped by your own habits of thought. So I can't talk you out of that. You have to talk yourself out of it. You would have to learn to think in a different fashion.

Ok, then replace state with experience or process. The question still stands.

Ok, then replace state with experience or process. — schopenhauer1

Right. So now you are asking what was the first internal experience? :lol:

But perhaps if you understand your question to be, "what was the first internal process?", you can see that life - being organismic - is already the internalisation of some process. Being an organism is already to have crossed a clear line in becoming a subject.

So you can either make the happy dualistic leap from material state to mental experience, which simply jumps to either side of the process view, or you can stop and consider what is actually being said in process terms.

And semiotics is the science of meaning. It is about the process of semantics. That Pattee paper should have grounded you in how that cashes out. It is all about a sign relation that allows modelling to regulate environmental or material instability in a way that produces local autonomy.

That is then the "analogy" (its actually much stronger than that) which allows you to talk about semiotics as a general process. Life and mind are levels of the same trick. One level involves the machinery of genes. The other, neurons and even words.

So your "mentalism" becomes as redundant as vitalism. There just is no mystical substance in need of a proper explanation. To ask for an explanation of "mind" or "experience" is to be already making a category error.

Life and mind are levels of the same trick. One level involves the machinery of genes. The other, neurons and even words. — apokrisis

Neurons > Words? The functional aspect (in this case of the internal process) you are trying to explain is already a given. Your story is incomplete. Neurons and sensory tissues that react to stimuli are behaviors the "what it feels like" are the experiences. Sure you can throw around words like "language" into the equation, but then you are putting the cart before the horse. What is this language-experience machine ontologically and how does this just "appear" from behaviors. Sure, you can try to talk over me by saying I just don't "get" it because I'm a dualist-thinker, but then you are just shrugging off the onus of explanation that I am asking for and not really answering anything. Saying, "Wouldn't processes feel like something" also does not answer the question, as that is not really an explanation. We already know the given that processes "feel" like something. Saying it is an umwelt doesn't say much either. What is this umwelt (without using the very terms that you are defining) as compared to other processes? It is equivalent to a synonym (umwelt = experiential process) rather than an explanation.

Saying, "Wouldn't processes feel like something" — schopenhauer1

And why wouldn’t the kind of world and self modelling that brains do, not feel like something rather than nothing?

You’ve never said despite being asked many times now.

And why wouldn’t the kind of world and self modelling that brains do, not feel like something rather than nothing?

You’ve never said despite being asked many times now. — apokrisis

What are you defining as self-modelling then (without falling into the "just a synonym" trap. This time self-modelling= experiential process. Again that wouldn't be an explanation, just a synonym, an infinite regress)?

What are you defining as self-modelling then — schopenhauer1

An umwelt is a model of the world with a self in it. It is a world modelled from a point of view that expresses a personal set of interests. So it is a way to understand why experience appears to be imbued with selfhood and thus avoid the usual dualistic and homuncular regress of a self that witnesses its own perceptions in some Cartesian theatre. Selfhood is built into the "picture" from the beginning.

Again that wouldn't be an explanation, just a synonym, an infinite regress)? — schopenhauer1

Again, can you now answer my question instead of continuously deflecting. Why wouldn’t the kind of unwelt modelling that brains do, not feel like something rather than nothing?

An umwelt is a model of the world with a self in it. — apokrisis

What does that mean? "Self in it"? That makes no sense outside of already experiencing selfhood.

So it is a way to understand why experience appears to be imbued with selfhood and thus avoid the usual dualistic and homuncular regress of a self that witnesses its own perceptions in some Cartesian theatre. Selfhood is built into the "picture" from the beginning. — apokrisis

And this I really don't understand, as you have selfhood baked into your umwelt. How does that work?

Again, can you now answer my question instead of continuously deflecting. Why wouldn’t the kind of unwelt modelling that brains do, not feel like something rather than nothing? — apokrisis

Because of precisely what I am inquiring above.. How is selfhood baked into this schema? How is that not falling right into the Cartesian theater fallacy you are trying to avoid?

What does that mean? "Self in it"? That makes no sense outside of already experiencing selfhood. — schopenhauer1

I've explained these things 1000 times. Look up umwelt. Look up proprioception. Look up enactive perception. If you want to discuss these issues, you need to educate yourself on them.

Because of precisely what I am inquiring above.. — schopenhauer1

You are just deflecting. If you were serious about wanting to know, you would have learnt enough about how the brain works not to be wasting my time with your Cartesianism.

I didn't mind discussing something new with you - like abiogenesis. But now you are back on your old hobby horse. Boring.

I've explained these things 1000 times. Look up umwelt. Look up proprioception. Look up enactive perception. If you want to discuss these issues, you need to educate yourself on them. — apokrisis

I have and nothing about it tells me that it reveals anything that sheds light on the problem. If anything, it is just a noisier version of the idea that "organisms interact with the world and evolve in order to fit into their environment". This adds nothing to the mind debate. It may add something to evolutionary biology/sociology, etc. but not to this particular problem. If you think it does, I'd like to hear it. But you will just claim that I am ignorant, and thus slip away unscathed from any of the hard work you claim I don't do.

You are just deflecting. If you were serious about wanting to know, you would have learnt enough about how the brain works not to be wasting my time with your Cartesianism. — apokrisis

Sure we can wade through literature on all sorts of neurobiological concepts.. doesn't get me closer to what experiential process is. The problem is, you don't even know the problem. How behaviors are experiences are not explained, and that is enough for me to discount what you have to say regarding this particular problem. That is not to say I discount your knowledge of technical biochemical reactions and evolutionary biology, but so far, I have not seen it used to answer this particular question. You will refute the question itself, thus again, going unscathed.

Neurons and sensory tissues that react to stimuli are behaviors the "what it feels like" are the experiences. — schopenhauer1

As you know, I was arguing with @apo over this point earlier too. But I have come to think that what he is saying is that the sign relation just is the experience, the 'feeling-like-something'. So, this would not be to say that the 'bare material' is feeling like something, because there is no "bare material" without the sign relation. I think the point is that when it comes to the question " what is the feeling-like-something ontologically speaking" that the sign relation is where it "bottoms out". What more could we hope to say without positing some additional mental substance; which would be to return to substance dualism?

So, to think of it in terms of interpretation, as Peirce does or to think of it in terms of experience, prehension, as Whitehead does, is to emphasize one or the other side of the same irreducible coin. So, in the light of that I now retract what I said earlier about affect being prior to cognition; neither are "prior" they are, as the Buddhists say, and as I think @apo has been saying, co-dependently arising.

sign relation just is the experience, the 'feeling-like-something' — Janus

Is he saying that? That would be pan-experientialism, something he vehemetly denies. But anyways, can you explain to me what you think the sign relation is, that is this "feels-like-something"?

Sure we can wade through literature on all sorts of neurobiological concepts.. doesn't get me closer to what experiential process is. — schopenhauer1

Defeatist.

The problem is, you don't even know the problem. — schopenhauer1

Sure I do. You keep running from the question of why all that umwelt-style modelling wouldn't feel like something.

Well, he will no doubt correct me if I am misinterpreting him, but I think he is just emphasizing the sign relation as interpretative rather than as experiential; but he doesn't seem to be denying that it is always experiential; i.e. that it feels like something "all the way down", or at least that it must be experiential (in some sense) "as far down" as it is interpretative.

interpretative rather than as experiential — Janus

Great, what does that mean?

Well an interpretation would be a response which is not merely mechanical, wouldn't it? A response in which there is some degree of creative freedom, and of the possibility of genuine novelty.

Defeatist. — apokrisis

O contrare, I like studying these concepts.. I just don't delude myself that this will get me closer to the problem.. Even you have to bring it from mere facts about neurochemistry/biology to a broader semiosis. Sure, we need the biochemistry to anchor us in the substrates, but we need more for what is the case- that is how the processes lead to experiential processes.

Sure I do. You keep running from the question of why all that umwelt-style modelling wouldn't feel like something. — apokrisis

Piggy-backing off of Janus, I'd like to know more on how interpretation works. How organisms interacting with the world is experience. In other words, what is the metaphysics of interpretation?

Well an interpretation would be a response which is not merely mechanical, wouldn't it? — Janus

I don't know. What does that mean?

Isn't that the kind of definition which makes sense of the difference between human and computer responses?

Isn't that the kind of definition which makes sense of the difference between human and computer responses? — Janus

Okay, so explain what the difference is then? What is interpretation vs. mechanical?